Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) Streaming of media over a network from a content distribution network has been widely adopted for media consumption. Various protocols for such streaming have been proposed, and are often associated with various providers of hardware or software. For example, and without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) protocol has been put forth by Apple, and is typically associated with Apple devices, such as, iPhones, iPads, and so forth. Likewise, the HTTP Smooth Streaming (HSS) protocol has been proposed by Microsoft, and is accordingly often associated with Microsoft products, such as Windows Phone and Silverlight. The HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS) protocol is associated with Adobe and Adobe products, such as Flash Player and Flash Media Server. MPEG DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP, ISO/IEC 23009-1:2012) was put forward by the MPEG standards body as yet another alternative standard adaptive bitrate protocol.
It is appreciated that each of these protocols may be supported on hardware or by software produced by one of these bodies, even though that particular hardware or software may be produced by one particular provider, and the adaptive bitrate format associated with a different provider. By way of example, a device running a Microsoft operating system may be displaying streamed content which is streamed using the HDS protocol of Adobe.
The present invention will be understood and appreciated more fully from the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the appendix in which Appendix A presents an exemplary HLS Master Playlist and HLS Stream Playlist, as well as the corresponding HSS, HDS, and DASH outputs that the HLS Master Playlist and HLS Stream Playlist would be converted to.